What I Do

Alex Simmons is a professional freelance writer, teaching artist, and public speaker, as well as an arts & education consultant.

Simmons has penned over 17 middle school and YA novels. As a writer of comics and graphic novels, he has created and written the critically acclaimed adventure series, BLACKJACK, about an African-American soldier of fortune in the 1930s. He received the 2010 Glyph Best Writer Award for his work with Archie & Friends, especially, The Cartoon Life of Chuck Clayton (both series for Archie Comics). Simmons co-created an African-American hero for DC Comics' Batman books, and chronicled several tales of Scooby Doo. He's also created 12 interactive mysteries for the Tiger Toys electronic game WHO DONE IT (which received three educational awards).

For over 20 years Simmons has written (and in some cases also created) a number of juvenile mysteries under a variety of pseudonyms for many well-known publishers. He has penned articles for magazines; two educational documentaries; several stage plays; three movie novelizations for Disney and three biographies for Steck-Vaughn, including one on Denzel Washington.

Simmons is the founder and co producer of the annual KIDS’ COMIC CON (an age appropriate comic book convention for children, families, and educators), which has brought fun, art, literacy and science to children from New York to Africa.

Simmons is also the founder and curator of the COLOR OF COMICS art exhibition (containing images from artists around the globe) representing the portrayal of people of color in comics. This event was chosen by the American Embassy Dakar to be part of the Fessman International Cultural Arts Festival in Senegal Africa, in December 2010.

Simmons has been brought in as a guest speaker to talk about such matters as literacy, arts-n-education, diversity, and more. He's given workshops on science and super heroes, journalism, and playwriting to students and teachers in varying socio-economic levels.